It all started on a Monday evening, when my left eye began to feel tired while reading in bed. Typically a minor result of an allergy or a speck of dust in the eye, I washed my face and hands, put a cool compress on the eye for a bit, and went to bed.
On Tuesday morning, my eye was swollen shut. I began my homeopathic detox process. By that evening, no more swelling, but half my face was in a rash.
Wednesday morning, the left half of my face was rashed and puffy, but during the day, nothing seemed to worsen. I felt it had reached its worse and would begin to subside.
Thursday morning, both eyes were swollen shut, my entire face and neck were covered in a rash, and we were off to the Emergency Room where I got a prescription of steroids.
This, one day before I was committed to leave for Bridge Day, where I was helping set up and attend a booth for our local development corp.
By Friday morning, most of the swelling was gone, and the rash no longer itched. But, I was puffy, and my face was red and chapped, badly.
Friday evening, I was in Fayetteville, after loading the truck in the cold, and was standing outside on a mountain porch, covered with wet leaves, myself shivering in the drizzle with others, outside “A Taste of Bridge Day” eating some of the best BBQ shrimp I’ve ever had.
We were up at 4 am on Saturday to make the 5:30 am security check, and the long vendor’s “parade” to our bridge locations. That alone took 40 minutes, and five minutes after we set up our canopy, the drizzling rain began again. Temperature? Mid-thirties. Great weather for chapped skin faces….
At 3 on the dot, the festival ended, and we shot across the median to race to the hotel room’s heat and for a short nap before dinner and the second night of our weekend rental (one night was not an option).
Sunday morning, I packed the truck, we drove home, unpacked my friend in Grantsville then I unpacked myself and home, and came in to a kitchen strung with empty and full chicken noodle soup cans and bowls and sauce pots, and a sick husband on the couch.
Who told me there was going to be a deep freeze that evening. So, in the midst of unpacking, laundry, kitchen duty, nurse maiding AND repacking my bags, I also went to the garden and ripped up 22 pepper plants that still bore not-quite-ripe fruit.
Dump them out on a sheet on the spare bed, and geez I feel hot, but get packed and get going, I’m due in Marietta to spend two days with my cousin, in from California, whom I have not seen in eight years and haven’t spend any real time with in…. 30 years?
By the time I arrived at my Mother’s (who, as scheduling glitches would have it is at the beach), my fever peaked. My cousin was out to lunch, so I hopped in the shower to sweat it out and sterilize myself. We spent the evening in, ordered pizza, and went to bed early, with plans for a trip to Morgantown to do some relocation research for her.
That night, I had cold sweats under the electric blanket, and felt like someone beat me with a ball bat. I was up to urinate every 30 minutes.
Monday morning, I felt better. I wasn’t dead, I had control of my digestive system, a slight cough, and my fever had broken in the night. Off to Morgantown, where we visited the Visitor’s Center, WVU Human Resources, hospitals and had lunch at the fish market and deli, where I had the best shrimp bisque I’ve had in twenty years. I also tasted a sweet potato soup I think I can copy.
Back then to Marietta, for a nap, then a late dinner at Outback with other cousins, whom I haven’t spend a full meal with in… um…. well, years. I had more soup (excellent french onion) and more shrimp, which in Vienna, are not as good as the shrimp I had at Outback last month in Morgantown.
Good company, good meal followed by a good night’s sleep. the next morning I bid my cousin good bye, and returned home to discover – husband still on the couch where I left him, more chicken noodle cans, bowls and sauce pots all over the kitchen, peppers still on the bed, and four days worth of messages, mail e-mail and work waiting.
No freaking out allowed. Wash the bed linens, wash germy clothing from trip, wash dishes, clean kitchen. String any ripe chilis to dry. Fill hot tub with epsom salts for hubby and I to share, catch up with the mail in bed before falling asleep.
And that brings us to….. today.
Husband, feeling better, went to work. Me, still plumb-tuckered, slept in. Then, I turn to face the future — a deadline two days away, a full schedule of tasks and appearances at GSC’s upcoming homecoming, a husband heading off to Morgantown for an audio workshop.
I think, except for dusting, running the sweeper and making hot pepper jelly, I’m almost caught up.
I think.
